Sentience is the ability to feel, perceive or be conscious, or to have subjective experiences. Eighteenth century philosophers used the concept to distinguish the ability to think ("reason") from the ability to feel ("sentience"). In modern western philosophy, sentience is the ability to have sensations or experiences (described by some thinkers as "qualia"). For Eastern philosophy, sentience is a metaphysical quality of all things that requires respect and care. The concept is central to the philosophy of animal rights, because sentience is necessary for the ability to suffer, which entails certain rights. In science fiction, non-human characters described as "sentient" typically have similar abilities, qualities and rights as human beings.

Philosophy and sentience[link]

In the philosophy of consciousness, "sentience" can refer to the ability of any entity to have subjective perceptual experiences, or "qualia".^[1] This is distinct from other aspects of the mind and consciousness, such as creativity, intelligence, sapience, self-awareness, and intentionality (the ability to have thoughts that mean something or are "about" something). Sentience is a minimalistic way of defining "consciousness", which is otherwise commonly used to collectively describe sentience plus other characteristics of the mind.

Some philosophers, notably Colin McGinn, believe that sentience will never be understood, a position known as "new mysterianism". They do not deny that most other aspects of consciousness are subject to scientific investigation but they argue that subjective experiences will never be explained; i.e., sentience is the only aspect of consciousness that can't be explained. Other philosophers (such as Daniel Dennett) disagree, arguing that all aspects of consciousness will eventually yield to scientific investigation.

Eastern religion[link]

Eastern religions including Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism, and Jainism recognize non-humans as sentient beings. In Jainism and Hinduism, this is closely related to the concept of ahimsa, nonviolence toward other beings. In Jainism, all matter is endowed with sentience; there are five degrees of sentience, from one to five.^{[citation needed]} Water, for example, is a sentient being of the first order, as it is considered to possess only one sense, that of touch. Man is considered to be a sentient being of the fifth order. According to Buddhism, sentient beings made of pure consciousness are possible. In Mahayana Buddhism, which includes Zen and Tibetan Buddhism, the concept is related to the Bodhisattva, an enlightened being devoted to the liberation of others. The first vow of a Bodhisattva states: "Sentient beings are numberless; I vow to free them."

Sentience in Buddhism is the state of having senses (sat + ta in Pali, or sat + tva in Sanskrit). In Buddhism, the senses are six in number, the sixth being the subjective experience of the mind. Sentience is simply awareness prior to the arising of Skandha. Thus, an animal qualifies as a sentient being.

Animal rights and sentience[link]

In the philosophy of animal rights, sentience implies the ability to experience pleasure and pain. Animal-rights advocates typically argue that any sentient being is entitled at a minimum to the right not to be subjected to unnecessary suffering, though they may differ on what other rights (e.g., the right to life) may be entailed by simple sentience.

The 18th-century philosopher Jeremy Bentham compiled Enlightenment beliefs in Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation (second edition, 1823, chapter 17, footnote), and he included his own reasoning in a comparison between slavery and sadism toward animals:

The French have already discovered that the blackness of the skin is no reason why a human being should be abandoned without redress to the caprice of a tormentor [see Louis XIV's Code Noir]... What else is it that should trace the insuperable line? Is it the faculty of reason, or, perhaps, the faculty of discourse? But a full-grown horse or dog is beyond comparison a more rational, as well as a more conversable animal, than an infant of a day, or a week, or even a month, old. But suppose the case were otherwise, what would it avail? The question is not Can they reason? nor, Can they talk? but, Can they suffer?

In the 20th century, Princeton University professor Peter Singer argued that Bentham's conclusion is often dismissed by an appeal to a distinction that condemns human suffering but allows non-human suffering, typically "appeals" that are logical fallacies (unless the distinction is factual, in which case the appeal is just one logical fallacy petitio principii). Because many of the suggested distinguishing features of humanity—extreme intelligence; highly complex language; etc.—are not present in marginal cases such as young or mentally disabled humans, it appears that the only distinction is a prejudice based on species alone, which animal-rights supporters call speciesism—that is, differentiating humans from other animals purely on the grounds that they are human.

Gary Francione also bases his abolitionist theory of animal rights, which differs significantly from Singer's, on sentience. He asserts that "all sentient beings, humans or nonhuman, have one right: the basic right not to be treated as the property of others."^[2]

Andrew Linzey, founder of the Oxford Centre for Animal Ethics in England, is known as a foremost international advocate for recognizing animals as sentient beings in Biblically-based faith traditions. The Interfaith Association of Animal Chaplains encourages animal ministry groups to adopt a policy of recognizing and valuing sentient beings.

In 1997 the concept of animal sentience was written into the basic law of the European Union. The legally-binding Protocol annexed to the Treaty of Amsterdam recognizes that animals are "sentient beings", and requires the EU and its Member States to "pay full regard to the welfare requirements of animals".

The laws of several states include certain invertebrates such as cephalopods (octopuses, squids) and decapod crustaceans (lobsters, crabs) in the scope of animal protection laws, implying that these animals are also judged to be capable of experiencing pain and suffering.^[3]

David Pearce is a British philosopher of the negative utilitarian school of ethics. He is most famous for his advocation of the idea that there exists a strong ethical imperative for humans to work towards the abolition of suffering in all sentient beings.

Artificial intelligence[link]

This section requires expansion.

Although the term "sentience" is avoided by major artificial intelligence textbooks and researchers,^[4] it is sometimes used in popular accounts of AI to describe "human level or higher intelligence" (or strong AI). This is closely related to the use of the term in science fiction.

Science fiction[link]

In science fiction, an alien, android, robot, hologram, or computer who is described as sentient is usually treated as a fully human character, with similar rights, qualities, and capabilities as any other character. Foremost among these properties is human level intelligence (see above), but sentient characters also typically display desire, will, consciousness, ethics, personality, insight, and many other human qualities. Sentience is being used in this context to describe an essential human property that brings all these other qualities with it. The words "sapience", "self-awareness", and "consciousness" are used in similar ways in science fiction.

Some science fiction plot lines explore ethical concerns analogous to the concerns of advocates of animal rights. In an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation, "The Measure of a Man", Data, a sentient android, takes legal action to prove that he has the same rights as a human being. In the Star Trek: Voyager episode "Author, Author" the Doctor, a holographic program by nature, fights for his rights as a sentient lifeform. The film A.I. Artificial Intelligence considers a machine in the form of a small boy which has been given the ability to feel human emotions, including the capacity to suffer. In these examples, sentience plays the same role as it does in the philosophy of animal rights.

In many science fiction works sentience is often used as a synonym for sapience meaning "human-level or higher intelligence". But others make a distinction; for example, in David Brin's Uplift stories, the Tandu are undoubtedly sapient (both technologically skilled and cunning) but only marginally sentient, since they regard other races and sometimes other Tandu mainly as potential prey.^{[citation needed]}

Sentience quotient[link]

The sentience quotient concept was introduced by Robert A. Freitas Jr. in the late 1970s.^[5] It defines sentience as the relationship between the information processing rate of each individual processing unit (neuron), the weight/size of a single unit, and the total number of processing units (expressed as mass). It was proposed as a measure for the sentience of all beings living and computer from a single neuron up to a hypothetical being at the theoretical computational limit of the entire universe. On a logarithmic scale it runs from −70 up to +50.

See also[link]

• Blindsight
• Causality
• Consciousness
• Explanatory gap
• Hard problem of consciousness
• Mind
• Mind-body problem
• Mirror test
• Pain in invertebrates
• Philosophical zombie
• Philosophy of mind
• Problem of other minds
• Solipsism
• Turing test

References[link]

Further reading[link]

• Sugunasiri, Suwanda H.J., The Whole Body, not Heart, as 'Seat of Consciousness': the Buddha's View', Philosophy East & West, vol. 45, no. 3, pp. 409–430). Prof. Sugunasiri is Founder of Nalanda College of Buddhist Studies, Toronto, Canada
• Jeremy Bentham - Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation
• Book about A Theory of Sentience Readership: Philosophers, psychologists, and neuroscientists interested in sensation and perception. Authors, Austen Clark, Professor of Philosophy, University of Connecticut, Storrs
• D. Cole: Sense and Sentience SENSE5 8/18/90; rev. 1-19-98. (original 1983) copyright David Cole University of Minnesota, Duluth
• Science, policy and cultural implications of animal sentience, Suggested Reading, Compassion in World Farming

v t e Animal rights Focus Main topics (Portal:Animal rights, Category:Animal rights) Animal cognition Abolitionism Animal protectionism Animal rights Animal welfare Bioethics Sentience Speciesism Veganism Vegetarianism Subtopics Animal model Animal rights and the Holocaust Animals in sport Animal product Animal testing Animal testing on non-human primates Anti-hunting Bile bear Blood sport Covance Cruelty to animals Ethics of eating meat Factory farming Fox hunting Fur trade Great ape research ban Green Scare Huntingdon Life Sciences International trade in primates Livestock Nafovanny Open rescue Operation Backfire Pain and suffering in laboratory animals Recreational fishing Seal hunting Slaughterhouse Stock-free agriculture Veganarchism Women and animal advocacy Zoo Animal law Category:Animal law Category:Animal rights and welfare legislation Animal law Cases Britches Brown Dog affair Cambridge University primates McLibel case Pit of despair Silver Spring monkeys Unnecessary Fuss Notable advocates Academics/writers (List of animal rights advocates, Category: Animal rights advocates) Carol Adams Douglas Adams Jeremy Bentham Steven Best Paola Cavalieri Stephen R. L. Clark Priscilla Cohn Lawrence Finsen Gary Francione Robert Garner Antoine Goetschel Anna Kingsford Andrew Linzey Mary Midgley Tom Regan Bernard Rollin Mark Rowlands Richard D. Ryder Peter Singer Henry Stephens Salt Steve Sapontzis David Sztybel John Vyvyan Steven M. Wise Roger Yates Activists Greg Avery Brigitte Bardot Martin Balluch Gene Baur Frances Power Cobbe Rod Coronado Karen Davis Bruce Friedrich Juliet Gellatley Celia Hammond Barry Horne Ronnie Lee Lizzy Lind af Hageby Keith Mann Ingrid Newkirk Heather Nicholson Alex Pacheco Jill Phipps Craig Rosebraugh Henry Spira Kim Stallwood Marianne Thieme Andrew Tyler Robin Webb Nathan Runkle Notable organizations List of animal rights groups Category:Animal rights movement Animal Aid Animal Legal Defense Fund Animal Liberation Front British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection Chinese Animal Protection Network Great Ape Project Hunt Saboteurs Association Mercy for Animals Oxford Centre for Animal Ethics People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals United Poultry Concerns Parties List of animal advocacy parties Category:Animal advocacy parties Animal Alliance Environment Voters Party of Canada Animals Count (UK) Animal Justice Party (Australia) Animal Protection Party (UK) Party Against Bullfighting, Cruelty and Mistreatment of Animals (Spain) Party for the Animals (Netherlands) Tierschutzpartei (Germany) Films A Cow at My Table The Cove Behind the Mask Earthlings Meet Your Meat Peaceable Kingdom The Animals Film Other media Animal Liberation (1975) Arkangel Bite Back No Compromise Categories Animal law Animal Liberation Front Animal rights movement Animal rights Animal testing Blood sports Livestock Poultry Veganism

This biographical article is written like a résumé. Please help improve it by revising it to be neutral and encyclopedic. (January 2009)

Raymond Carlos “R.” Nakai (born April 16, 1946) is a Native American flautist of Navajo/Ute heritage.

Biography[link]

Born Ray Carlos Nakai, in Flagstaff, Arizona, he released his first album, Changes, in 1983. He has been nominated for four Grammy Awards, and two of his records, Canyon Trilogy and Earth Spirit, have been RIAA certified Gold, two of the first Native American flute albums to go gold.

He published The Art of the Native American Flute in 1996 with James Demars, Ken Light and David P. McAllester, which provided resources and support for other musicians playing the Native American flute. It defined a system of tablature notation that could be used across a wide variety of flute keys and tunings.^[1]

In 2005 he was inducted into the Arizona Music & Entertainment Hall of Fame. As well as having a large number of solo albums, Nakai has also worked with many other musicians, including Tibetan flutist Nawang Khechog, flutist Paul Horn, and American composer Philip Glass.^[2] In 2005 he traveled to Hawaii to collaborate with slack key guitar master Keola Beamer fusing two very different indigenous American cultural forms and producing the album, "Our Beloved Land." He lives in Tucson, Arizona. Nakai earned a Master’s Degree in American Indian Studies from the University of Arizona. He was awarded the Arizona Governor’s Arts Award in 1992, and an honorary doctorate from Northern Arizona University in 1994.

Films[link]

• Songkeepers (1999, 48 min.). Directed by Bob Hercules and Bob Jackson. Produced by Dan King. Lake Forest, Illinois: America's Flute Productions. Five distinguished traditional flute artists - Tom Mauchahty-Ware, Sonny Nevaquaya, R. Carlos Nakai, Hawk Littlejohn, Kevin Locke – talk about their instrument and their songs and the role of the flute and its music in their tribes.^[3]

• The New World (2005, 135 min.). Directed by Terrence Malick. Produced by Sarah Green and Terrence Malick. Performed "Water Bearer", "Ancient Voices", "Ritual 1" and "Spiral Journey". Courtesy of Celestial Harmonies/Mayflower Music Corporation.

Discography[link]

R. Carlos Nakai Discography

• Changes, 1983.
• Cycles, 1985.
• Journeys, 1986.
• Earth Spirit, 1987.
• Canyon Trilogy, 1989.
• Emergence, 1992.
• Mythic Dreamer, 1998.
• Island of Bows, 1994.
• Inner Voices, 1999.
• Enter >> Tribal, 2001.
• Fourth World, 2002.
• Sanctuary, 2003.
• In Beauty, We Return, 2004.
• Talisman, 2008.

Compilation appearances[link]

• Narada Film and Television Music Sampler
• Voyages with Udi Bar-David, 2007.

Publications[link]

• The Art of the Native American Flute, 1996. R. Carlos Nakai with James Demars, Ken Light and David P. McAllester

References[link]

External links[link]

• R. Carlos Nakai
• R. Carlos Nakai interviews from the Echoes public radio show
• World Music Central biography

Nawang Khechog
Nawang Khechog at the Festival culturel du Tibet et des peuples de l'Himalaya, 19 September 2004
Background information
Born	1949/1950
Origin	Tibet
Occupations	Musician
Instruments	Flute
Website	www.nawangkhechog.com

Nawang Khechog (Tibetan: ངག་དབང་མཁས་མཆོག་, Wylie: Nga-dbang Mkhas-mchog; also known as Nawang Khechong) is a Tibetan flute player and composer.

Nawang was born in Tibet, but following the Chinese invasion of 1949/1950, his family moved to India, where Nawang studied meditation and Buddhist philosophy. He spent eleven years as a monk, including four years as a hermit meditating in the Himalayan foothills under the guidance of the Dalai Lama.

A self taught musician, Nawang's expression springs from his emotions and his life experience traveling the world as a Tibetan nomad. In 1986, he emigrated to Australia, where he first performed, and his recordings achieved bestseller status. Nawang is best known for his collaborations with Kitaro, including performances on Kitaro's Grammy-nominated Enchanted Evening and Mandala albums. He has received international acclaim for his live performances with Philip Glass, Paul Winter, Laurie Anderson, Paul Simon, Natalie Merchant, R. Carlos Nakai, and Babatunde Olatunji. On July 31, 1999, Nawang performed with the band Phish during their encore at the Fuji Rock Festival in Niigata, Japan.

Nawang is part of a fairly large group of musicians in the Tibetan tradition now active in the West, including singer Techung, singer Karjam Saeji, singer Phurbu T Namgyal, singer Yungchen Lhamo, singer Amchok Gompo Dhondup and Jewish-American Tibetan-genre performer Amalia Rubin.

External links[link]

• Nawang Khechog homepage
• Short biography at Canyon Records
• Domo Music Group
• Short biography at Yahoo
• Biography at VOA News

The man with no name (Italian: Uomo senza nome) is a stock character in Western films, but the term usually applies specifically to the character played by Clint Eastwood in Sergio Leone's "Dollars Trilogy."

In 2008, Empire chose "The Man With No Name" as the 43rd greatest movie character of all time.^[1]

Appearances[link]

Films[link]

• A Fistful of Dollars (1964)
• For a Few Dollars More (1965)
• The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966)

Literature[link]

The popularity of the character brought about a series of spin-off books, dubbed the "Dollar" series due to the common theme in their titles, written by Joe Millard and Brian Fox. They included novelizations of A Fistful of Dollars, written by Frank Chandler and For a Few Dollars More and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly by Joe Millard and are as follows:

• A Coffin Full of Dollars by Joe Millard
• A Dollar to Die For by Brian Fox
• The Devil's Dollar Sign by Joe Millard
• The Million-Dollar Bloodhunt by Joe Millard
• Blood For a Dirty Dollar by Joe Millard

In July 2007, American comic book company Dynamite Entertainment announced that they were going to begin publishing a comic book featuring The Man With No Name. Set after the events of The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, the comic will be written by Christos Gage. Dynamite refers to him as "Blondie", the nickname Tuco uses for him in The Good, the Bad and the Ugly.^[2] The first issue was released in the Spring of 2008, entitled, The Man with No Name: The Good, The Bad, and The Uglier.^[3] Luke Lieberman and Matt Wolpert took over the writing for issues #s 7-11.^[4][5] Initially, Chuck Dixon was scheduled to take over the writing chores with issue #12,^[6] but Dynamite ended the series and opted to use Dixon's storyline for a new series titled The Good, The Bad and The Ugly. The new series is not an adaptation of the movie, despite its title.

Stephen King stated in the re-release of the first four books of his Dark Tower series that the main character Roland Deschain, also known as The Gunslinger, was based on Clint Eastwood's portrayal of The Man with No Name.

Concept and creation[link]

A Fistful of Dollars was directly adapted from Akira Kurosawa's Yojimbo. It was the subject of a successful lawsuit by Yojimbo's producers.^{[7][dead link]} The film's protagonist, an unconventional ronin played by Toshirō Mifune, bears a striking resemblance to Eastwood's character: both are quiet, gruff, eccentric strangers with a strong but unorthodox sense of justice and extraordinary proficiency with a particular weapon (in Mifune's case, a katana; for Eastwood, a revolver).

Like Eastwood's character, Mifune's ronin is nameless. When pressed, he gives the pseudonym Sanjuro Kuwabatake (meaning "thirty-year-old mulberry field"), a reference to his age and something he sees through a window (although, regarding the age he jokes 'Closer to forty actually'). The convention of hiding the character's arms from view is shared as well with Mifune's character typically wearing his arms inside his kimono, leaving the sleeves empty.^[8] Prior to signing on to Fistful, Eastwood had seen Kurosawa's film and was impressed by the character.^[9] During filming, he did not emulate Mifune's performance beyond what was already in the script. He also insisted on removing some of the dialogue in the original script, making the character more silent and thus adding to his mystery. As the trilogy progressed, the character became even more silent and stoic.

Yojimbo is itself believed^[10] to have been based on Dashiell Hammett's novel Red Harvest.^[11] Kurosawa scholar David Desser and film critic Manny Farber, among others, state categorically that Red Harvest was the inspiration for the Kurosawa film Yojimbo.^[12] Leone himself clearly believed this theory, stating:

"Kurosawa's Yojimbo was inspired by an American novel of the serie-noire so I was really taking the story back home again."^[13]

Although Kurosawa never publicly credited Hammett, he privately acknowledged Red Harvest as an influence.^[14] The name of the lead character in Hammett's Red Harvest is also unrevealed — a man with no name — and identified only as a Continental Op after the detective agency he works for.^[15]

A subsequent film, Last Man Standing (1996), starring Bruce Willis is a credited remake of Yojimbo.

Actual names or monikers[link]

• During A Fistful of Dollars, he is referred to as "Joe" by the undertaker, Pipinero, and Eastwood is also credited as "Joe", although the "Joe" is here likely used in the generic sense, i.e. "(informal) a male; a guy; a fellow".
• In For a Few Dollars More, he is called "Manco" (Spanish: "one armed"), referring to the way he does everything left-handed, except for shooting.
• In The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, the character Tuco calls him "Blondie" as a reference to his relatively fair complexion. In a scene cut from the international version, a Union Captain asks his name, to which he responds with an "Uhh", imitating Tuco, and the conversation moves elsewhere.

References[link]

External links[link]

Man with No Name at the Internet Movie Database

This biographical article is written like a résumé. Please help improve it by revising it to be neutral and encyclopedic. (January 2012)

Paul Robertson
Paul Robertson
Nationality	Canadian
Alma mater	Richard Ivey School of Business
Occupation	President of Shaw Media and Group Vice President of Broadcasting at Shaw Communications
Employer	Shaw Communications

Paul W. Robertson is a Canadian businessperson, media executive and producer known for his work in animated television and broadcasting. He is currently the Group Vice President, Broadcasting of Shaw Communications and the President of Shaw Media.^[1] Paul holds an honours degree in Business Administration^[2] from The Richard Ivey School of Business at the University of Western Ontario.

Career[link]

Paul Robertson brings over 30 years of broadcasting and marketing experience to the operational oversight of the Global Television network and Shaw Media’s portfolio of 18 specialty channels.

His previous roles include President of Corus Television,^[3] Senior Vice President of Programming and Marketing at CTV, President of Baton Broadcasting, President of Nelvana, and Senior Marketing positions at Campbell Soup and General Foods.

References[link]

External links[link]

• Paul Robertson at the Internet Movie Database
• Animation Magazine's interview with Paul Robertson (November 7, 2002)
• Shaw taps Corus veteran for top TV job (May 4, 2010)
• Shaw Takes Reins as Canwest Rides into Sunset (October 27, 2010)
• One Minute with Shaw's Paul Robertson (June 2, 2011)